The Pope of Trash  

With more than 16 films to his credit, John Waters has elevated low-budget trash culture to art. He is known for his offbeat look at American sexuality, with classics such as Pink Flamingos, Polyester, and Pecker. In his latest movie, A Dirty Shame, a cultural battle rages in suburban Baltimore, between sex addicts and ‘neuters.’

AMERICAN SEXUALITY: With the medicalization of sexuality, for instance with Viagra, it seems people’s sexuality can more easily be turned off and on, sort of like the neuters and sex addicts in A Dirty Shame when they get knocked in the head. Did that occur to you when you chose to make the film?

JOHN WATERS: I did use ‘Viagravated’ in the film, an expression I found on the Internet. Women are actually pissed off that their husbands are sexually active again. They thought they would never have to do it with them again. That’s a new minority, but probably a very large one. I think certain people, many people in their marriage after a certain time, they don’t feel like doing it. And suddenly when the husband has the hard-on of a 19-year-old, that can be quite an annoyance for somebody who isn’t turned on by that person anymore.

But to me the whole thing of being medicated at all is overly prescribed. I believe in psychiatry and I don’t even know if they have that anymore. If you go to any psychiatrist, they just offer you pills. I believe all those pills have certainly saved many people’s lives who were clinically depressed, but there were many of them who were not clinically depressed. And to me it seems wrong to be even all the time. Who wants to be even? I don’t.

I think that led to the movie in some ways—which says I don’t want to be normal. (In A Dirty Shame) the doctor says, ‘You should be depressed.’ They think that something’s wrong with you because you’re not depressed. So I think the over-medication of everything is sort of what led to this movie.

But Viagra, is it true? … You still have to be turned on, right? You don’t just get a magic hard-on.

AMERICAN SEXUALITY: I don’t know. I’ve never taken it.

JOHN WATERS: Well I have. I’ve tried every drug; I certainly wasn’t going to stop at that one. … I’m just saying, I think Viagra gives you a dumb hard-on. I think Mink says it in the movie, “He has no right to be that hard.”

AMERICAN SEXUALITY: A New York Times review of A Dirty Shame said, “(Waters) insists that unfettered sexuality is one big, happy party while also clinging to the idea that sex is a disruptive, dangerous, subversive force.” Can you respond to that?

JOHN WATERS: There are many risks involved with sex today. When I was growing up, you could experiment, you could be promiscuous. I grew up in a time of wild sexuality when there were sex clubs and sex bars and the worst you got was crabs.

Today … you know, half my friends have died. So basically, safe sex is something that’s been very important in my life certainly, and my age people. At the same time, what used to be thought of as normal, good, healthy sex is now irresponsible, because it’s unsafe.

So now all the ridiculous stuff I have in my movie, (the search for a new sex act) … maybe we really do have to think of another sex act. Maybe there is one—because all the other ones, every one I can think of practically, is unsafe. I know many people died of syphilis, but still it seems to me the stakes are pretty high these days. So sex is dangerous again. And also, it controls our lives. It’s instinct and instinct to me is slightly distasteful because I don’t have a choice whether I want to have sex or not.

AMERICAN SEXUALITY: And what about sexuality, being one big, happy party?

JOHN WATERS: It can be. I certainly remember times when it was one big happy party. But I think something in a movie can be a much more realistic, crazy-happy party than in real life. I don’t ever say that my movies are real life, reflecting what I want to happen in real life. I think there were times in my life where it was pretty wild, and I look back on it with fondness. … But at the same time, if I had a child I would be very, very nervous if I heard they were doing that.

AMERICAN SEXUALITY: Do you think your views are changing as you get older; are you taming down?

JOHN WATERS: No. I think everybody wants sex no matter what age. Julian Barnes has written great books about old age and sex. There are some amazing, amazing things in there about how people want sex as much as they did when they were 14 when they’re 75. And I believe that’s true.

AMERICAN SEXUALITY: Could you talk a bit more about why you choose to make sex so central to your films?

JOHN WATERS: Sex in all my movies is always ludicrous. I don’t think I’ve had the missionary position once in any of my films. Because to me, sex is surreal: Who thought that up? Who did that for the first time? To me it’s funny. We lose a little bit of control in our lives over it; everybody does a little bit about sex. People have given up their kingdoms, their marriages, their fortunes, their lives for sex.

Basically, there is room for humor with that at all times. It’s a great subject for comedy, sex, because first of all it’s universal—everyone has had a bad night and a good night because of whatever sexual experience they like. And I’ve always said if you can laugh about the worst night that ever happened to you sexually, you will survive and have a great sense of humor. Most people are not equipped to do that.

AMERICAN SEXUALITY: Has the public or public reaction to your work changed over the years?

JOHN WATERS: I think the American humor has completely changed. I don’t think I have. I think the most subversive thing I’ve done is Hairspray, the musical on Broadway. Families are sitting there watching two men sing a love song to each other and thinking it’s a family experience. Some of my movies, you might say preach to the converted. That isn’t preaching to the converted.

AMERICAN SEXUALITY: Does the political climate have an impact on your career, the films you make?

JOHN WATERS: A lot of people said, ‘Did you make (A Dirty Shame) because of George Bush?’ Maybe accidentally. …Sometimes though, I think during the ’60s when Nixon was president, it was a great time as far as rebellion. Great art can come out of a repressive government, in America. I’m not saying I’m for that. I think it’s better if it isn’t. But sometimes when you have such an obvious maledict enemy it gives some solidarity to other lunatics to fight it.

AMERICAN SEXUALITY: Is that where we are now?

JOHN WATERS: We’ll see, won’t we? I think it’s going to be an exact tie and anarchy’s going to happen ’cause no one is going to give in. And if no one knows who’s the president of this country, it will be worldwide anarchy. That’s what I believe is going to happen.

AMERICAN SEXUALITY: If you hadn’t become a filmmaker, what do you think you would have become?

JOHN WATERS: I would have been a lawyer for the depraved, the despised and the damned…I believe the worst person on the whole earth needs one person to stick up for him.

AMERICAN SEXUALITY: How did you develop that philosophy, where did it come from?

JOHN WATERS: I don’t know that. I went to a shrink and never figured that out. I don’t think that’s a wrong thing to want to be, or a neurotic thing.

I had very loving parents. I come from a middle-class home, fairly conservative parents but they’ve been very supportive of my career, even though sometimes they were horrified by it. My father when he saw my new movie, at the opening, he said, ‘It was very funny and I hope I never see it again’—which is pretty funny but it sort of sums up my parents’ support in a good way. I think I got some of my sense of humor from my parents, too. My mom asked me what this movie was about before I made it—A Dirty Shame. I said, ‘Well, it’s about sex addicts,’ and she said, ‘Oh, maybe we’ll die first.’